Mother breaks down in tears as she is finally reunited with her long-lost daughter who was abducted at a train station 26 years ago
- Yin Meiling was bought by her adoptive family at a train station in China
- She was taken after her aunt fell asleep while waiting for a train with her
- She said she always thought she had been abandoned by her birth parents
- The 26-year-old was finally reunited with her mother and father last month
A mother's love to her daughter is the most powerful connection on earth - so powerful it doesn't get weakened by long distance or the passing of time.
A Chinese woman whose baby daughter was abducted at a train station in 1992 immediately recognised her as the pair were reunited 26 years later.
The mother, named by police as Chen Dongxiang, broke down in tears as she was finally able to hug her long-lost child last month after missing her every day for more than two decades.
She cried to her daughter: 'I have been looking (for you) constantly.'
Chen Dongxiang (pictured) waits for her long-lost daughter at the reunion last month in China
The mother cries as she hugs her daughter who was abducted at a train station 26 years ago
The 26-year-old daughter, Yin Meiling, lives in the city of Wenzhou in eastern China's Zhejiang Province while her birth parents live in southern China's Hunan Province.
Ms Yin was snatched on one fateful day in late 1992 when her aunt took her to a train station. She was eight or nine months old.
Her father Mr Shu told Qianjiang Evening News that Ms Yin's aunt and the baby were waiting for a train to the city of Huaihua at the time.
'(Her aunt) said she fell asleep at the station and when she woke up, the baby was gone,' said Mr Shu.
Ms Shu and his wife, Ms Chen, had a son after their daughter went missing but he they had never given up looking for the girl.
Ms Chen told the reporter she still remembered her daughter was wearing a top with a floral pattern on the day she went missing.
Sitting next to her daughter, the mother said: 'I have been looking (for you) constantly'
Ms Yin, now a mother to a daughter herself, said she grew up with a man who had never married, and her adoptive father and grandparents passed away when she was little.
But she stressed that her adoptive family had treated her 'very well' and had always given her the best they could afford.
'But one day, my grandfather suddenly told me I was not born to the family. He said I had been bought by my grandmother at a train station,' she said.
The revelation left a shadow hanging over Ms Yin. She was haunted by the thought that she might have been abandoned by her biological parents as a baby.
'I hated them when I was little, and later I hated them when I was by my own and feeling helpless,' she said.
She added that as she grew older, she decided to find out the truth. She hoped to find her parents again and understand how she had gone missing.
Ms Yin regularly browsed Baobeihuijia, a website specialised in connecting families with their missing members, in hope of seeing clues to her far-away family.
In 2014, she went to the police in the Lucheng district of Wenzhou city to have her blood sample taken.
Her DNA data were then registered into China's national anti-abduction database, which contains the DNA information of thousands of youngsters who are looking for their parents and adults who are looking for their missing children.
The network, which is free to use for all, has helped more than 5,000 children find their family since its establishment in 2009, according to People's Daily.
The family have a selfie taken while enjoying a meal after being reunited in the city of Wenzhou
Good news was delivered to Ms Yin four years later.
Last November, she was informed by the police that her DNA had been matched with a couple from Hunan Province.
'Whether I was abandoned or abducted, it's not important to me anymore. Right now I just want to have parents,' she said one day before the reunion.
She and her birth parents finally met on December 20 at a reunion ceremony set up by the Wenzhou Public Security Bureau.
She went back to Hunan Province with her parents the next day as a new chapter of her life begins.
Ms Yin and her parents were one of the four families that were reunited by the Wenzhou police on the day.
One of the couples, Lin Zurun and Liao Yue'e who live in Wenzhou, found their daughter, He Zhen'ai who lives in Jiangxi, after being separated from her for 31 years, reported Zhejiang News.
Why is child abduction a serious problem in China?
Around 200,000 boys and girls are reported to be missing every year, said media
Child abduction is a serious problem in China, especially in rural areas.
One major cause is that the Chinese families prefer sons to daughters, resulting in them buying baby boys.
In addition, the severe gender gap - a result of three decades of one-child policy - has made it hard for Chinese men to find wives. As a result, teenager girls are sometimes kidnapped and sold as child brides.
Child abduction remains a sensitive topic to the Chinese authorities. No official figures have been released on how many children are kidnapped in China every year.
However according to a 2016 report on Chinese news site Caijing, around 200,000 boys and girls are reported to be missing every year. Among them, only 200, or 0.1 per cent, would be able to find their parents at some point of their lives.
A survey shows that around 64 per cent of the kidnapped children in China are boys
The report also claimed that there are more than one million child beggars in China and most of them were abducted by human traffickers or forced to beg by their families.
Baobeihuijia, a website specialised in connecting families with their missing members, has conducted a survey on the kidnapped children in China based on 8,861 cases listed on their website.
The survey shows that around 64 per cent of the kidnapped children are boys and more than 75 per cent of the kidnapped children are under the age of six.
However, among those who are abducted over the age of 13, there are more girls than boys.
The survey also claims that children under the age of four are most likely to be abducted in China.
